lynching and cow vigilantism

 Hapur verdict, challenging vigilantism

The Hapur conviction is an acknowledgement that the state was not only a participant but also an enabler

life imprisonment in a case of cow protection-related lynching  

1 On March 12, 2024, in a first for Uttar Pradesh, a trial court in Hapur awarded life imprisonment in a case of cow protection-related lynching of a Muslim man. 

2 The additional district and sessions court judge Shweta Dixit sentenced

•  10 men to life sentences and 
• fined them ₹59,000 each,
•  under charges of  - murder, attempt to murder, rioting and promoting religious enmity.

3 ` The conviction in this case is significant because while illegal vigilante crimes are coalitionary projects between state and non-state actors, the price paid is solely by the non-state actors.

in June 2018, Qasim Qureshi was lynched to death

 and Samiuddin was brutally assaulted, by a Hindu group in the Bajhera Khurd village, under the false accusation of cow-slaughter. 

The steep rise in cow vigilantism / safe in India 

1 has occurred on the back of the state’s interest in the campaign to protect cattle from slaughter. 

2 We seen  

blur boundaries between vigilantes and the state and has gained legal legitimacy. 

Governments in Haryana, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh 

1 have amended their cow slaughter prevention laws and set up special task forces to enforce them. These have allowed cow vigilantes to operate freely, with the state’s sanction and the police’s cognisance. 

2 As a result, judicial processes that punish cow protectionists for their anti-Muslim violence have been rare occurrences.

The Uttar Pradesh court’s conviction is just the fifth one

in cow protection-related lynchings in India: three others are in Jharkhand and one in Rajasthan.

 Of these, only the courts in Jharkhand have pronounced maximum life sentences in the 2016 lynching of Mazlum Ansari and Imteyaz Khan and the 2017 lynching of Alimuddin Ansari.

 Hapur lynching judgement is significant for three critical reasons

State is supporter 

1 The order censures the police for fabricating the First Information Report (FIR).

2  It states that the police created an alternative narrative of Qasim’s death and Samiuddin’s grievous injuries. 

The police claimed that these were the result of a motorcycle accident, instead of a lynching.

3  state was not only a participant but also an enabler.

4 The judgment also casts aspersions on the police’s intent. The police did not collect the statements of Samiuddin and other eyewitnesses.

 5 In an “extremely objectionable” act, the police also damaged the video evidence of the confession of one of the accused.

•  The judgment alleges that the police did not conduct a forensic investigation of a weapon that was recovered from another one of the accused. 

• said to -  Director General of the Police, Uttar Pradesh, to investigate the collusion of police personnel and investigating officers.

Second, the police made attempts at misdirecting the investigation initially

 

Despite Samiuddin approaching officers, the police did not conduct an official identification parade, for Samiuddin to single out the men accused of the crime. 

This failure helped the accused to secure bail. However, the court’s sentencing to life imprisonment is an indicator that the State cannot provide the security of the cow vigilantes.

conviction must not be seen as a dent in the state’s sanction of such anti-Muslim violence

 Instead, it brings to the fore how the state delegates illegal policing to vigilantes.

 As seen in several cases of anti-minority violence, while police complicity enables crimes against Muslims, the convictions have no material impact on the state.

.

State-induced lynching

The two systems that sustain every lynching conviction

• are the state that enabled it 
• and the processes that legitimised it. 

Despite the life imprisonment, what remains untouched, unpunished, and unchanged, is the state-induced lynching.

 The close association of the police

 in the exercise of such violence has persisted through several such instances. 

The processes that led to the concoction of the FIR, manipulation of the investigation, the designedly defective evidence collection and handling, and the police harassment, are typical of cases of anti-minority violence.

The Hapur conviction, that imposed the maximum punishment on the culprits, can be a big win for justice. However, it is also a reminder that state crimes continue to be sustained while the non-state actors, or 10 of them, are disposed of.

source the hindu